From Cloughton to Haiburn Wyke--The embowered Path--Approach to
the Sea--Rock, Water, and Foliage--Heavy Walking--Staintondale
Cliffs--The Undercliff--The Peak--Raven Hall--Robin Hood's Bay
--A Trespass--Alum Works--Waterfalls--Bay Town--Manners and
Customs of the Natives--Coal Trade--The Churchyard--Epitaphs--
Black-a-moor--Hawsker--Vale of Pickering--Robin Hood and Little
John's Archery--Whitby Abbey--Beautiful Ruin--St. Hilda,
Wilfrid, and Coedmon--Legends--A Fallen Tower--St. Mary's
Church--Whitby--The Vale of Esk--Specimens of Popular Hymns.
The next morning looked unpromising; the heavy rain which began to fall
the evening before had continued all night, and when I started, trees
and hedges were still dripping and the grass drooping, overburdened with
watery beads. Bye-paths are not enticing under such circumstances:
however, the range of cliffs between Haiburn Wyke and Robin Hood's Bay
is so continuously grand and lofty that I made up my mind to walk along
their summit whether or not.
About half an hour from Cloughton brought me to a 'crammle gate,' as the
natives call it; that is, a rustic gate with zigzaggy rails, from which
a private road curves down through a grove to a farm-house on the right.
Here, finding no outlet, I had to inquire, and was told to cross the
garden. All praise to the good-nature which trusts a stranger to lift
the "clinking latch" and walk unwatched through a garden so pretty,
teeming with fruit, flowers, and vegetables; where a path overarched by
busy climbers leads you into pleasing ins and outs, and along blooming
borders to the edge of a wooded glen, and that is Haiburn Wyke. The
path, not trimly kept as in the garden, invites you onwards beneath a
thick shade of oak, ash, and hazel; between clumps of honeysuckle and
wild roses, and broken slopes hung with ferns and ivy, and a very forest
of grasses; while, to heighten the charm, a little brook descends
prattling confidingly to the many stones that lie in its crooked
channel. The path winds, now steep, now gradual, and at the bends a seat
offers a resting-place if you incline to pause and meditate.
There was another charm: at first a fitful murmur which swelled into a
roar as I sauntered down and came nearer to the sea. The trees grow so
thickly that I could see but a few yards around, and there seemed
something almost awful in the sound of the thundering surge, all the
heavier in the damp air, as it plunged on the rugged beach: so near, and
yet unseen. But after another bend or two it grows lighter overhead,
crags peep through the foliage on both sides, and then emerging on a
level partly filled by a summer-house, you see the narrow cove, the
jutting cliffs that shelter it, and every minute the tumultuous sea
flinging all round the stony curve a belt of quivering foam.
I could not advance far, for the tide had but just begun to fall;
however, striding out as far as possible, I turned to look at the glen.
It is a charming scene: the leafy hollow, the cliffs rounding away from
the mantling green to present a bare front to the sea, yet patched and
streaked with gray and yellow and white and brown, as if to make up for
loss of verdure. There the brook, tumbling over stony ledges, shoots
into a cascade between huge masses of rock, and hurries still with
lively noise across the beach, talking as freely to boulders of five
tons' weight as to stones of a pound; heedless, apparently, that its
voice will soon be drowned for ever in the mighty voice of the sea. It
is a charming scene, truly, even under a gloomy sky: you will see none
fairer on all the coast. On a sunshiny day it should attract many
visitors from Scarborough, when those able to walk might explore
Cloughton Wyke--less beautiful than this--on the way.
To get up the steep clay road all miry with the rain on the northern
side of the glen, was no easy task; but the great ball of clay which
clung to each of my feet was soon licked off by the wet grass in the
fields above. I took the edge of the cliffs, and found the ascent to the
Staintondale summit not less toilsome. There was no path, and wading
through the rank grass and weeds, or through heavy wheat and drenched
barley on ground always up-hill, wetted me through up to the hips in a
few minutes, and gave me a taste of work. For the time I did not much
admire the Yorkshire thriftiness which had ploughed and sown so close
to the bank leaving no single inch of space. However, I came at times to
a bare field or a pasture, and the freshening breeze blew me almost dry
before climbing over awkward fences for another bath of weeds and grain.
And besides, a few faint watery gleams of sunshine began to slant down
upon the sea, and the increasing height of the cliffs opened wide views
over land and water--from misty hills looming mountainous on one side,
to the distant smoke of a coasting steamer on the other. And again there
are two or three miles of undercliff, a great slope covered with a dense
bush threaded here and there by narrow paths, and forming in places an
impenetrable tangle. To stand on the highest point, five hundred and
eighty-five feet above the sea, and look down on the precipitous crags,
the ridges and hollows and rounded buttresses decked with the mazy bush
where birds without number haunt, is a sight that repays the labour. At
the corner of one of the fields the bushes lean inwards so much from the
wind, that the farmer has taken advantage of the overshoot to construct
a bower wherein to sit and enjoy the prospect.
These tall cliffs are the sudden termination of a range of hills
stretching from the interior to the coast. Taken with the undercliff,
they present many combinations which would delight the eye and employ
the pencil of an artist. And to the geologist they are of abounding
interest, exhibiting shale, shelly limestone, sandstones of various
qualities in which belemnites and ferns, and other animal and vegetable
fossils, are embedded in surprising quantities. You can descend here and
there by a zigzag path, and look up at the towering crags, or search the
fallen masses, or push into the thicket; that is, in dry weather. After
about two miles the bush thins off, and gives place to gorse, and reedy
ponds in the hollows, and short turf on which cattle and sheep are
grazing.
The range continues for perhaps five miles and ends in a great
perpendicular bluff--a resort of sea-birds. Here on getting over the
fence I noticed that the pasture had a well-kept, finished appearance;
and presently, passing the corner of a wall, I found myself on a lawn,
and in front of Raven Hall--a squire's residence. An embrasured wall
built to represent bastions and turrets runs along the edge of the
cliff, and looking over, you see beneath the grand sweep of Robin Hood's
Bay backed by a vast hollow slope--a natural amphitheatre a league in
compass, containing fields and meadows, shaly screes and patches of
heath, cottages, and the Peak alum-works. We are on the Peak, and can
survey the whole scene, away to Bay Town, a patch of red capped by
pale-blue smoke just within the northern horn of the bay.
A lady and gentleman were trying in defiance of the wind to haul up a
flag on the tall staff erected at the point, to whom I apologised for my
unintentional trespass. They needed no apology, and only wondered that
any one should travel along the cliffs on such a morning. "Did you do it
for pleasure?" asked the lady, with a merry twinkle in her eye, as she
saw how bedraggled I looked below the knees.
The gentleman left the flapping banner, and showed me from the rear of
the premises the readiest way down to the beach--a very long irregular
descent, the latter portion across the alum shale, and down the abrupt
slope of Cinder Hill, where the buildings are blackened by smoke. At
first the beach is nothing but a layer of small fragments of shale, of a
dark slate-colour, refuse from the works; and where the cliffs reappear
there you see shale in its natural condition, and feel it beneath your
feet while treading on the yielding sand. Numerous cascades leap down
from these cliffs; at the time I passed swollen by the rain, and well
set off by the dark precipice. One of them was a remarkably good
representation of the _Staubbach_ on a small scale.
About half way I met a gig conveying visitors to the Hall at a walking
pace, for the wheels sank deep. It was for them that the flag was to be
raised, as a signal of welcome; and looking back I saw it flying
proudly, on what, seen from below, appeared a castle on the cliff. At
this moment the sun shone out, and lit up the Peak in all its
magnificent proportions; and the effects of my trudge through drip and
mire soon disappeared. Another mile and the rocks are thickly strewn
with periwinkles, and great plashy beds of seaweed must be crossed, and
then we see that the outermost houses rest on a solid weather-stained
wall of boulders, through which descends a rugged incline of big
stones--the foot of the main street of Bay Town.
There is no lack of quarters, for within a few yards you may count seven
public-houses. It is a strange place, with alleys which are stairs for
side streets, and these leading into queer places, back yards and
pigstyes, and little gardens thriving with pot-herbs. Everything is on
a slope, overtopped by the green hill behind. Half way up the street, in
what looks like a market-place, lie a number of boats, as if for
ornament. You can hardly imagine them to have been hauled up from the
beach. Some of the shops are curiosities in their appearance and display
of wares; yet there are traders in Bay Town who could buy up two or
three of your fashionable shopkeepers in the watering-places.
"Yer master wants ye," said a messenger to a young fellow who sat
smoking his pipe in the _King's Head_, while Martha, the hostess, fried
a chop for my dinner.
"Tell him I isn't here: I isn't a coomin'," was the answer, with a touch
of Yorkshire, which I heard frequently afterwards.
From the talk that went on I gathered that Bay Town likes to amuse
itself as well as other places. All through the past winter a ball or
dance had been held nearly every evening, in the large rooms which, it
appears, are found somewhere belonging to the very unpretending
public-houses. On the other hand, church and chapel are well attended,
and the singing is hearty. Weddings and funerals are made the occasion
of festivals, and great is the number of guests. Martha assured me that
two hundred persons were invited when her father was buried; and even
for a child, the number asked will be forty or fifty; and all get
something to eat and drink. It was commonly said in the neighbourhood
that the head of a Bay Town funeral procession would be at the church
before the tail had left the house. The church is on the hill-top,
nearly a mile away. A clannish feeling prevails. Any lad or lass who
should chose to wed with an outsider, would be disgraced. Ourselves to
ourselves, is the rule. On their way home from church, the young couple
are beset by invitations to drink at door after door, as they pass, and
jugs of strong liquor are bravely drained, and all the eighteen hundred
inhabitants share in the gladness. Hence the perpetuation of Todds and
Poads. However, as regards names, the most numerous which I saw were
Granger and Bedlington, or Bettleton, as the natives call it.
The trade in fish has given place to trade in coal; and Bay Town owns
about eighty coal brigs and schooners, which sail to Edinburgh, to
London, to ports in France, and one, which belongs to a man who a few
years ago was a labourer, crosses the ocean to America. There are no
such miserable paupers as swarm in the large towns. Except the collier
crews, the folk seldom leave the parish; and their farthest travel is to
Hartlepool in the steamer which calls in the bay on her way from
Scarborough.
I chose to finish the walk to Whitby by the road; and in a few minutes,
so steep is the hill, was above Bay Town, and looking on the view
bounded by the massy Peak. Near where the lane enters the high road
stands the church, a modern edifice, thickly surrounded with tombstones.
Black with gilt letters, appears to be the favourite style; and among
them are white stones, bearing outspread gilt wings and stars, and an
ornamental border. The clannish feeling loves to keep alive the memory
of the departed; and one might judge that it has the gift of "powetry,"
and delights in epitaphs. Let us read a few: we shall find "drowned at
sea," and "mariner," a frequent word in the inscriptions:
Partner dear my life is past,
My love for you was to the last;
Therefore for me no sorrow take,
But love my children for my sake.
An old man of eighty-two is made to say:
From raging storms at sea
The Lord he did me save,
And here my tottering limbs is brought
To moulder in the grave.
Lancelot Moorsom, aged seventy-four, varies the matter thus:
Tho' boreas blast and neptune waves
Hath toss'd me too and fro',
By God's decree you plainly see,
I'm harbour'd here below,
But here I do at anchor ride
With many of our fleet,
And once again I must set sail,
My Saviour Christ to meet.
Of a good old wife, we read something for which the sex would be the
better were it true of all:
She was not puff'd in mind,
She had no scornful eye,
Nor did she exercise herself
In things that were too high.
Childhood claims a tender sentiment; and parents mourn thus for their
little ones:
One hand they gave to Jesus, one to Death,
And looking upward to their Father's throne,
Their gentle spirits vanish'd with their breath,
And fled to Eden's ever blooming zone.
The road runs along the high ground near enough to the sea for you to
hear its roar, and note the outline of the cliffs, while inland the
country rolls away hilly to the dreary region described by old writers
as "Black-a-moor." Another half-hour, and having passed through Hawsker,
you see a strange-looking building a long way off. It is the Abbey of
Whitby. And now a view opens into the Vale of Pickering; and there, in
the fields on the left, are the stones which mark where the arrows fell,
when Robin Hood and Little John, who had been treated to a dinner at the
Abbey, went up on the roof to gratify the monks with a specimen of their
skill, and proved the goodness of their bows, and their right to rank as
foremost of English archers. As your eye measures the distance, more
than a mile, your admiration of the merry outlaws will brighten up,
unless like the incredulous antiquary, you consider such stories as only
fit to be left "among the lyes of the land."
Seen from the road, over the wall-top, the abbey reveals but few of the
beautiful features which charm your eye on a nearer view. To gain
admission you have to pass through an old mansion belonging to the
Cholmley family, in which, by the way, there are rooms, and passages,
and a stair, weapons, furniture, and tapestry that remind you of the
olden time; and in the rear a delightful garden, with a prospect along
the vale of Esk. From the garden you enter a meadow, and may wander at
will about the ruin.
I saw it to perfection, for the sky had cleared, and the evening sun
touched the crumbling walls and massy columns and rows of graceful
arches with wondrous beauty, relieved by the lengthening shadows. The
effect of the triple rows of windows is singularly pleasing, and there
are carvings and mouldings still remaining that will bear the closest
inspection, although it was a mason of the thirteenth century who cut
them. Three distinct styles are obvious, and you will notice that the
whitest stone, which is the oldest, is the least decayed. An aisle
still offers you the shelter of its groined roof, the transept still
shows the corbels and niches, and carved roses that fed the eyes of
Robin Hood's entertainers, and on the sedilia where they sat you may now
repose. Every moment you discover some new beauty, something to increase
your admiration, and wonder that so much should be left of a building
which has not a tree to shelter it from the storms of the sea.
For twelve hundred years the ground has been consecrated. Here the
blessed St. Hilda founded a monastery, and dedicated it to St. Peter, in
658. Here it was that the famous debate was held concerning the proper
time of Easter between the Christians who were converted by Culdee
missionaries from Ireland before St. Augustine's visit, and those of the
later time. It was St. John and the practice of the Eastern Church
against St. Peter and the Western; and through the eloquent arguments of
Wilfrid of Ripon, the latter prevailed.
Here Coedmon, one of the menial monks, was miraculously inspired to
write the poem which immortalises his name; and here St. John of
Beverley was educated. Then came the Danish pirates under Ubba, and
destroyed the monastery, and the place lay waste till one of William the
Conqueror's warriors, grieved to the heart on beholding the desolation,
exchanged his coat of steel for a Benedictine's gown, and rebuilt the
sacred house.
Few who come hither will need to be reminded of that inspiriting voyage
along the coast, when
"The Abbess of St. Hilda placed
With five fair nuns the galley graced,"
nor of the sisters' evening talk, while
"--Whitby's nuns exulting told,
How to their house three barons bold
Must menial service do;
While horns blow out a note of shame,
And monks cry 'Fye upon your name!
In wrath, for loss of sylvan game,
St. Hilda's priest ye slew.'--
This on Ascension day, each year,
While labouring on our harbour-pier,
Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear.--
They told how in their convent cell
A Saxon princess once did dwell,
The lovely Edelfled;
And how of thousand snakes, each one
Was changed into a coil of stone
When holy Hilda pray'd;
Themselves, within their holy bound,
Their stony folds had often found.
They told how seafowls' pinions fail,
As over Whitby's towers they sail,
And sinking down, with flutterings faint,
They do their homage to the saint."
The stately tower, the glory of the ruin, fell in 1830, at the close of
a reign, during which things good and beautiful were unhappily but too
much neglected. A rugged heap, with lumps of stone peeping out from
tufts of coarse grass, marks the spot where the fall took place; the
last, it is to be hoped, that will be permitted in so striking a
memorial of the architecture of the past. Standing in private grounds
and surrounded by a light iron fence, it is now safe from the intrusion
of cattle and from wanton spoilers.
A few yards beyond the abbey, you cross St. Mary's churchyard to the top
of a long flight of steps, where a remarkable scene opens suddenly
beneath. Whitby, lying on each side of the Esk, the river winding from a
wooded vale, expanding to receive the numerous vessels of the inner
harbour, and flowing away between the houses and the two piers to the
sea. The declivity is so abrupt, that the houses appear strangely
huddled together, tier above tier, in irregular masses, as if resting
one on the other, and what with the colour and variety of forms, the
shipping, the great depth of the valley, the great bluffs with which it
terminates, and line upon line of breakers beginning to foam at two
furlongs from the shore, make up a scene surpassingly picturesque; one
that you will be in no hurry to lose sight of. If the Whitby
church-goers find it toilsome to ascend nearly two hundred steps every
Sunday, they have a goodly prospect for recompense, besides the service.
One wall of the church is said to be older than any portion of the
abbey; but the edifice has undergone so many alterations, that
meritorious architecture is not now to be looked for. A more breezy
churchyard it would not be easy to find. Opposite, on the farther cliff,
is a cluster of new stone houses, including a spacious hotel, built to
attract visitors; an enterprise promoted by King George Hudson in his
palmy days.
I lingered, contemplating the view, till it was time to look for an
inn; I chose the _Talbot_, and had no reason to repent my choice. On the
way thither, I bought two religious ballads at a little shop, the
mistress of which told me she sold "hundreds of 'em," and that they were
printed at Otley. As specimens of a class of compositions which are
relished and sung as hymns by a numerous section of the community, they
are eminently suggestive. Do they supply a real want? Are they harmless?
Are they edifying? Can they who find satisfaction therein be led up to
something better? To close this chapter, here follows a quotation from
_The Railway to Heaven_:
"O! what a deal we hear and read
About Railways and railway speed,
Of lines which are, or may be made;
And selling shares is quite a trade.
* * * * *
Allow me, as an old Divine,
To point you to another line,
Which does from earth to heaven extend,
Where real pleasures never end.
* * * * *
Of truth divine the rails are made,
And on the Rock of Ages laid;
The rails are fix'd in chairs of love,
Firm as the throne of God above.
* * * * *
One grand first-class is used for all,
For Jew and Gentile, great and small,
There's room for all the world inside,
And kings with beggars here do ride.
* * * * *
About a hundred years or so
Wesley and others said they'd go:
A carriage mercy did provide,
That Wesley and his friends might ride.
'Tis nine-and-thirty years, they say,
Whoever lives to see next May,
Another coach was added then
Unto this all important train.
* * * * *
Jesus is the first engineer,
He does the gospel engine steer;
We've guards who ride, while others stand
Close by the way with flag in hand.
CHORUS.
"My son, says God, give me thy heart;
Make haste, or else the train will start."
The other, entitled _Daniel the Prophet_, begins with:
"Where are now the Hebrew children?
Where are now the Hebrew children?
Where are now the Hebrew children?
Saved into the promised land;"
and after enumerating the prophet, the fiery furnace, the lion,
tribulation, Stephen, and the Great Apostle, in similar strain, ends:
"Where is now the patriarch Wesley?
Where is now the patriarch Wesley?
Where is now the patriarch Wesley?
Saved into the promised land."
CHORUS.
"When we meet we'll sing hallelujah,
When we meet we'll shout hosannah,
When we meet we'll sing for ever,
Saved into the promised land."
Though good taste and conventionality may be offended at such hymns as
these, it seems to me that if those who sing them had words preached to
them which they could understand and hearken to gladly, they would be
found not unprepared to lay hold of real truth in the end.